Iran's atomic chief says ready to allay West concerns over nuclear program

TEHRAN, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali-Akbar Salehi said that the Islamic republic is ready to allay the West's concerns over its controversial nuclear program, Tehran Times daily reported Saturday.

"We acknowledge their concerns and are ready to ease them by international conventions," said Salehi, without specifying the issues that might be the source of controversy.

In past nuclear talks, Iran's high-grade uranium enrichment activities and its refusal to give inspectors access to certain military sites suspected of nuclear experiments had been hampering progress in resolving its nuclear issue.

Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last met in May and failed to achieve any breakthrough that would allow the UN unclear watchdog to carry out further investigations into Tehran's nuclear activities.

The two sides are scheduled to hold their next round of talks in Vienna on Sept. 27. While Salehi stressed "our principles have not changed and we have always demanded our rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the statute of the IAEA," he noted Iranian negotiators will try to help find a "win-win solution" to the issue.

Moreover, Iran's moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, has pledged much "transparency" in the nuclear program with the international community.

On Thursday, Rouhani tasked the Iranian Foreign Ministry with conducting the upcoming nuclear talks with the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), a move deemed likely to reduce the influence of hardliners on the process of talks.

Both the Iranian government and the six world powers showed interest in resuming nuclear talks after their last round of negotiations held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in April, although the meeting did not produce many practical results.